Nate envisions what exactly needs to go right for the Tigers to get in the playoffs.

The Tigers are the paramount example of just why we're running this series. Out of all of the major sports, baseball provides perhaps the best balance between luck and skill. The idea of the Cincinnati Reds or the Arizona Diamondbacks or the Baltimore Orioles winning the World Series might seem ridiculous, but so too did the idea of the Tigers winning the World Series twelve months ago. What's that? The Tigers didn't win the World Series? That rainy week in St. Louis wasn't just a bad dream?

Can the Cardinals become the first NL team to repeat since the Big Red Machine? In the NL Central, anything's possible.

It's a good thing that hope and faith aren't finite resources. If they were, then the teams in this year's NL Central race might just exhaust our supplies. Rationing would be required, fights would break out in the hope and faith bread lines, PSAs would solemnly lecture us on our duty as good citizens not to use more than we required...

Having leapfrogged past the Red Sox last season, could the Jays climb another rung up the AL East standings?

Having spent most of his first four years trimming the fat from the payroll, J.P. Ricciardi finally had himself positioned to make a big splash last winter, and splash he did, like an offensive lineman doing a cannonball into a swimming pool. It paid off, as the additions of A.J. Burnett, Troy Glaus, B.J. Ryan, and Lyle Overbay helped the team push past the slumping Red Sox to a second-place finish in the AL East, giving Ontarians plenty of Hope and Faith that a return to the playoffs could be in the offing for 2007.

Entertaining slogans in hand, the White Sox pitching must return to its 2005 form to get the club back in the postseason.

Driving home from downtown the other day, using my secret path that involves taking Kinzie and Hubbard West (if you live in Chicago, I just saved you hours annually, and you're welcome), I came across a small billboard promoting 2007 Chicago White Sox ticket sales. The slogan, and I'm paraphrasing from memory here, said, "We haven't won since 2005: time to end the drought." From "Good Guys Wear Black" to "Grinder Baseball," the White Sox' marketing efforts are always aggressive and entertaining, but can the "drought" end this year? The answer is 'yes,' but first, we have to get away from anything our computers are telling us for a second.